Revised — Incentivizing moderation reports with millimerits

[PowerGlove]

Original proposal

I saw a post by Welsh saying that moderation reports have been in decline and that he misses the days when he woke up to hundreds of reports in his queue. It got me thinking of ways to jump-start it again.

So, the idea would be for each user to have a "millimerit" balance (either hidden from view, or maybe visible next to the existing report accuracy numbers). Moderators could then award members with say 25 millimerits for any good report and -100 for any bad report.

The balance can (maybe, not sure) go negative, so you would have to "work off" each of your bad reports to get back above zero and each time you accumulate 1000 millimerits (40 good reports) the balance gets reset and you're awarded one real merit.

The thing I like about this system is that it can be completely ignored by the reporters that don't need an incentive (they can just pretend the system doesn't exist and keep doing their thing; it changes nothing for them except that they'll receive an extra merit once in a while). But, it might encourage others to spend their time cleaning up the forum, too. The steep carrot/stick ratio is to prevent would-be abusers from gaining any traction.

The specific values will need discussion/tuning so that there's just the right amount of incentive; too little and it obviously won't jump-start anything, too much and it would likely lead to excessive reporting.

An interesting consequence of a system like this is that it would probably compel a decent fraction of merit-seeking newbies to thoroughly learn the forum's rules.

This proposal touches code that I don't have access to, so I'm unable to provide a patch like I normally would, but it's a nice idea and I thought it would be worth sharing.

Revised proposal

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, everyone!

It seems like maybe reporter badges would be a better (less abusable) motivator. I'll address reporter badges at the end of this edit.

People have pointed out that reports are down because activity is down in general. That's true, but I still think ideas to motivate reporters are worth discussing.

The system as proposed above would have been automatic (i.e. once a mod marked a report as good or bad, the millimerits would be sent). The -100 penalty for a bad report was there to prevent people from spamming the mods with reports; each bad report "undoing" 4 good reports means that the threshold for profitability is 80% accuracy (i.e. at or below 80% you can't sustainably earn millimerits).

One piece of feedback that torpedoes the original proposal is the possibility of collusion, which I didn't think about. If the reward is handed out automatically, then it's only a matter of time before people start manufacturing posts for others to "report".

I think both of the above problems (the -100 penalty and abuse by collusion) can be solved with a fairly small adjustment:

Get rid of the -100 penalty for a bad report, but instead of the 25 millimerits for a good report being sent automatically, leave it up to the individual moderator's discretion. That way, the mods can spot abuse themselves; if someone spams them with mostly inaccurate reports or if reports seem suspiciously like collusion (e.g. someone keeps reporting new posts from the same user over and over again) then they can decline to issue any millimerits. Maybe the rule could be that when reporting a post, the moderator that handles it has the option of sending you between 0 and 1000 millimerits depending on how useful/valuable your report was. Then (just making up numbers) original reports can get ~60 and redundant (but still good) reports can get ~20, really valuable reports like malware can get ~300, and so on (some moderators would likely be more generous than others).

Reporter badges

A few people mentioned reporter badges, which I think would be a nice addition to the forum!

But I would like to remind the concept of (Seeking reporter badge images)

Maybe OP can do the heavy lifting for theymos to implement the reporter badges? That would be really cool.

Imho, way more elegant solution to make people report more is to introduce some sort of badges for the most active reporters as that's what people asked for repeatedly.

I was wondering if Gloves could possibly get those patches? I mean, for the images?

Reporters could be recognized with something like the proposed reporters badge of many years ago

Slow down, we reporters have yet to receive our badge JPEGs promised aeons ago.

However, like adding badges to the profile, there are a lot of option to grow.

A reporter badge would likely be more effective there.

I'm still hopeful that they get implemented at some point.

I support this also.

Well, it's been already 4 years and counting.

Which brings back the question when those badges will be implemented?

I'm for the idea of reporter badges, and I would be willing to spend my time on implementing them (including the ability for people to opt out, if they like). However, I've offered to take things off of theymos' plate before (specifically, this) and never heard back from him, so I'm not hopeful that he would let me tackle this.

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[Charles-Tim]

So, the idea would be for each user to have a "millimerit" balance (either hidden from view, or maybe visible next to the existing report accuracy numbers). Moderators could then award members with say 25 millimerits for any good report and -100 for any bad report.

There has been nothing negative on this forum, it would only be better if there is reward for good reports while nothing for bad report, instead of negative.

But the forum is working good the way it is now and theymos may not just consider this.

Even if theymos wants to implement this, at least those that should be rewarded should have at least more than 5000 or 10000 good reports in my opinion. Else, some people may begin to have the habit to just report even many good posts which would become an issue for moderators.

[Sandra_hakeem]

So, the idea would be for each user to have a "millimerit" balance (either hidden from view, or maybe visible next to the existing report accuracy numbers). Moderators could then award members with say 25 millimerits for any good report and -100 for any bad report.

Good proposal Gloves.
1)  If the millimerit balance stays hidden, then how's the estimations gonna be made? If it's visible, is that not gonna give everyone the guts to have a users' stat on their finger tips?
So how 'bout adding an extra Option to the MOD's tool just to enhance a single user's visibility -- strictly to the MODs alone??
2)  I haven't been taking it as a priority to report 'em post though but, I guess these cut ratio between "a user reporting a post wrongly and getting them right -- looks pretty much like a thug of war, a bridge of uncertainty"
Some peeps don't even know which post to report and what standards it has gone against -- those set of asshole would only suffer some lame depreciation with this theorem -- but I don't think they'd get motivated anyways, as the offer won't buy a plate of potato salad (assuming they were bucks) lol....

The thing I like about this system is that it can be completely ignored by the reporters that don't need an incentive (they can just pretend the system doesn't exist and keep doing their thing; it changes nothing for them except that they'll receive an extra merit once in a while). But, it might encourage others to spend their time cleaning up the forum, too. The steep carrot/stick ratio is to prevent would-be abusers from gaining any traction.

True.
Those set of reporters won't even recall that there's been an incentive though but it'll be exactly the same thing that'll ignite those yo-yos, dimwittys ...

;too little and it obviously won't jump-start anything, too much and it would likely lead to excessive reporting.

Which is the same thing you wanted right? Lol.... I'm sure you're not expecting an escalation over the previous quantity? If yes, then it'll attract alot if 5 merits could be gained in every 1000 millimerits and 100 is Lost for every bad report.... that seems cool to me

An interesting consequence of a system like this is that it would probably compel a decent fraction of merit-seeking newbies to thoroughly learn the forum's rules.

Yes, only for those who would DECIDE to LEARN.... "Compel" isn't the word Gloves; alot would even join the train and earn some merit points (that's if it were appreciable), and won't still know any damn thing for Christ sake!!! ....On the other hand, They could still be seeking for merits yet, won't look at this as an option. This whole thing means that "no matter how hard you try, you'd just end up realizing the forum wasn't meant for everyone AND, not everyone came in with a good motives, as yours. All the same, this is a good proposal and I'd like to hear from others too.
_{turning a legendary-SHE}

Sandra 🧑

[LoyceV]

moderation reports have been in decline and that he misses the days when he woke up to hundreds of reports in his queue.

There's less spam (and much less posts in general). In the past week, 35,000 posts were made. 4 years ago, there were 350,000 posts per week (that's 10 times more).

Moderators could then award members with say 25 millimerits for any good report

I see opportunities for selling spam bots and reporting bots to farm Merit.

and -100 for any bad report.

Punishing people for making an effort is discouraging. I already dislike it when one of my reports is marked as "Bad".

The specific values will need discussion/tuning so that there's just the right amount of incentive; too little and it obviously won't jump-start anything, too much and it would likely lead to excessive reporting.

A cleaner forum should be enough incentive. Or the joy of getting spammers banned.

An interesting consequence of a system like this is that it would probably compel a decent fraction of merit-seeking newbies to thoroughly learn the forum's rules.

Learning forum rules shouldn't be the primary reason to be here. Normal users should be more or less okay without knowing the details, just common sense is enough.

Let's stick with just this:

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
 - Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.
 - Highlighting good posts with the "Merited by" line.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

So, the idea would be for each user to have a "millimerit" balance (either hidden from view, or maybe visible next to the existing report accuracy numbers). Moderators could then award members with say 25 millimerits for any good report and -100 for any bad report.

The balance can (maybe, not sure) go negative, so you would have to "work off" each of your bad reports to get back above zero and each time you accumulate 1000 millimerits (40 good reports) the balance gets reset and you're awarded one real merit.

The whole idea of merit is to reward a good quality post. I don't think we should confuse it with a reporter's reporting status.

[Findingnemo]

Merits shouldn't be combined with reports even forum mentions don't worry about accuracy of the report you made so I don't think this idea may be implemented.

But I would like to remind the concept of (Seeking reporter badge images) theymos seeking images for badges like three levels and it happened in 2018 if I am not wrong but still now it doesn't been implemented.

[LoyceV]

theymos seeking images for badges like three levels and it happened in 2018 if I am not wrong but still now it doesn't been implemented.

This is why:

when I went to implement this it ended up being quite a bit more of a can of worms than I originally thought because of opting out, preventing certain report-count-padding strategies, etc. It's still on my to-do list, but there are several things above it.

Maybe OP can do the heavy lifting for theymos to implement the reporter badges? That would be really cool.

[Lucius]

I think that this idea of motivation is completely unnecessary and wrong, as others say, reports should not be linked to merits or any kind of monetary motivation. No matter how such a system is designed, there will always be those who will abuse it, and I believe that the moderators would have a lot of work and a lot of reports that would not make sense.

But I would like to remind the concept of (Seeking reporter badge images) theymos seeking images for badges like three levels and it happened in 2018 if I am not wrong but still now it doesn't been implemented.

Hmm, it's strange that the admin proposed something like that, and that nothing happened for more than 4 years, which means that it's something very low on his priority list. Given that badges were awarded in some other cases, I assume that their technical implementation is not too demanding, so perhaps part of the reason why they were not implemented lies in the fact that some do not want to be labeled as top reporters.

[Edwardard]

Learning forum rules shouldn't be the primary reason to be here. Normal users should be more or less okay without knowing the details, just common sense is enough.

Guess there are not a lot of such normal users as you'd think. Imo, over 90% newbies who decide to stay in the forum may become more or less merit-seeking, coz they want to earn a few extra bucks (by joining sig. camps, etc.). And the rest fall into a category where they just ask 1 question about their problem and run away from the forum forever when its solved. Think you'd agree mostly promotional camps incentivizes newbs. to stay here so they'll do what it takes.

The whole idea of merit is to reward a good quality post. I don't think we should confuse it with a reporter's reporting status.

Agreed, plus there is a loophole, ppl may create their own new alt accounts, start spamming with it and report themselves to earn merit on their other account.
Edit:

Would someone in their right senses do these? Hahaha....

Sig. spammers (who have hard time getting merits) would, to complete their weekly quota lmao..

[Rikafip]

I saw a post by Welsh saying that moderation reports have been in decline and that he misses the days when he woke up to hundreds of reports in his queue. It got me thinking of ways to jump-start it again.

The whole forum activity has been in decline for some time so no surprise that reports are in decline too. Another thing that might pad the stats are reports in altcoin section, which were very popular year ago (due Spambuster of the year award) and without it, majority of members don't have much incentive to report.

The steep carrot/stick ratio is to prevent would-be abusers from gaining any traction.

Make no mistake, whatever can be abused here will be abused, no matter how many reports they have to make in order to get one merit. All this would just burden the mods with extra work and in the end wouldn't really help removing the spam.

Imho, way more elegant solution to make people report more is to introduce some sort of badges for the most active reporters as that's what people asked for repeatedly.

[Sandra_hakeem]

The whole idea of merit is to reward a good quality post. I don't think we should confuse it with a reporter's reporting status.

Yeah, this is the same thing I thought though but honestly, I had to give in because I thought we'd need to devise some means to curtail the whole wall of spammy post we get usually.... Well, it might be a little of an abuse  to the merit system, but I don't think it'll obscure the original purpose of which it was created.

The images and badges is never an exception folks... I'm hearing of this plan for the first time though but, it's a cool one and I think it has some kinda interceptions that'll forfeit Glove's theorem; but that's not just possible when both are still under probation.....
Kudos Finding,
Edit 1:

Agreed, plus there is a loophole, ppl may create their own new alt accounts, start spamming with it and report themselves to earn merit on their other account.

Would someone in their right senses do these? Hahaha.... I couldn't hold over 'em. This is Just impossible cus "how long is that gonna work"?..if you say that the MODS are just gonna be unnecessarily stressed by some incessant request, I'll quickly agree with you. The former was just dumb and impossible.
Edit 2: I was wondering if Gloves could possibly get those patches? I mean, for the images?

Sandra 🧑

[Coyster]

Not too long ago there was a proposal to incentivize MS's with Bitcoins or any monetary reward of some sort, that idea was rubbished as being completely unnecessary as MS's do not need any sat for the good they do. I think likewise reporters, they shouldn't be motivated or incentivized with merits or monetary reward for reporting posts, or 'punished' for wrong reports.

Reporters could be recognized with something like the proposed reporters badge of many years ago, but with yet no implementation on that until now, that is Theymos doesn't think it to be too important. Having said that, if there is less reports nowadays we can take the positive side and agree that there are less shitposts to report, and not believe that it is due to lack of reporters and thus seek a way to pump reports for the moderators.

[DdmrDdmr]

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Likely, the sort of people that could be incentivized by a scheme of the sort are those that are either meritless or barely earn any merits. Very likely, those that frequently do report get merited through their posts, and a few stray merits every now and then will not really bring any joy to their meriting habits. As already said, it could lay the basis for intended post/reporting, or enhance reporting in mass old posts or posts in areas where nobody really cares about.

If anything, I’d make the rolling 30 day window report status list available at a lower threshold, or none at all (i.e. eliminating the 300 report requirement), as I find that is a rather useful tool to understand what gets marked as good and what doesn’t at a personal scale.

[UserU]

Slow down, we reporters have yet to receive our badge JPEGs promised aeons ago.

[Little Mouse]

This kind of proposal isn't new if I'm correct but it will also create a lot of more work. There will be new airdropped merit every time someone gets the millimerit. That means merit calculation will be different. Now, once someone reaches 1000 millimerits, they will get 1 merit and millimerit will be vanished. Will the record be there forever or until millimerit het reset.

If we keep altcoin section apart, I think there are a lot of people reporting the shit posts everyday. The number of the report is lower and the reason is pointed by LoyceV.
However, like adding badges to the profile, there are a lot of option to grow. I think having a detailed thread on which post should be reported or which isn't, would help people more to report. I'm talking about the standard of moderation. Sometimes, I feel bad when I see my reported post hasn't been deleted. It happens so many times when I have reported a post as off topic. What does off topic mean?

[OgNasty]

Slow down, we reporters have yet to receive our badge JPEGs promised aeons ago.

This seems to be the prevailing wisdom. Maybe an overhaul to the reporting system could include badges and merits. I don’t really see millimerits being much incentive. It wouldn’t change my reporting behavior at all. A reporter badge would likely be more effective there. I just don’t see merits being a very good reward. Other than fun, I don’t think they serve much of a purpose.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Moderators could then award members with say 25 millimerits for any good report and -100 for any bad report.

I'm not going to think of every downside (most have been mentioned already). I think one significant downside is that there will be abusers. User A will create alt accounts B and C, and have those spamming while he gets to report them accurately. He can do that repeatedly, and gain sMerits without doing a single post. Then, he can spend these sMerits to alt accounts D and E.

The forum is fine. No need to make it work more complexly. But good attempt.

[Welsh]

Reporting has reduced, but it's a combination of reasons. As pointed out above, one of them is simply activity, and therefore the amount of spam being posted. However, I do think reporting badges was probably the best idea, since it doesn't really encourage farming etc, and is more gimmicky, however some users will be extremely motivated for those gimmicky icons on their profile.

I'm still hopeful that they get implemented at some point.

[Smartvirus]

The idea of a negation and having to work it out is what doenat seat qell will me as, those who don't do any form of reporting or remains neutral to the activity have got nothing to be disturbed about as per working out. Not having it otherwise place either we have people trying there hands on reporting whatever posts just for the sake of earning millimerits as you've termed it.

Left for me, I'll prefer it wait at the pace we've got it. Peehaps people just stopped reporting or maybe we've got some better posters these days. The way of shame and the spam post threads is enough to make users sort out for some ways to be constructive on there posts.

[dkbit98]

So, the idea would be for each user to have a "millimerit" balance (either hidden from view, or maybe visible next to the existing report accuracy numbers). Moderators could then award members with say 25 millimerits for any good report and -100 for any bad report.

I don't think that more merits will motivate old users who are reporting less, but millimerits could actually work for new members who are trying to rank up.
Instead of buying or begging for merits they could finally make some positive forum contribution and earn merits this way.
Now for this to work I think that millimerits should not be hidden, and it should be thought carefully before implementing this change.

This proposal touches code that I don't have access to, so I'm unable to provide a patch like I normally would, but it's a nice idea and I thought it would be worth sharing.

You need approval of theymos for this, but chances are higher if moderators support your proposal.
Down side is that they will have more work, and not everyone is like Welsh

Maybe OP can do the heavy lifting for theymos to implement the reporter badges? That would be really cool.

I support this also.